Which is VMware’s recommended approach to upgrading each VMFS5 datastore to VMFS6?

A vSphere administrator upgraded vCenter Server (VC) from version 5.5 to 6.5. Existing VMFS5 datastoresconsumption is 75% full. All of the ESXi hosts have been upgraded to version 6.5. Existing datastores have notyet been upgraded.Which is VMware’s recommended approach to upgrading each VMFS5 datastore to VMFS6?

A. The option to upgrade datastores to VMFS6 is only available during the ESXi host upgrade process.

B. Log on one ESXi host at a time using vSphere 6.5 Windows Client Navigate to the datastores view. Rightclick on the VMFS5 datastore, and then select upgrade to VMFS6.

C. Log on to VC using vSphere 6.5 Web Client. Navigate to the datastores view. Right-click on the VMFS5 datastore, and then select upgrade to VMFS6.

D. Log on to VC using vSphere 6.5 Web Client. Create a VMFS6 datastore on a new LUN. Use storage vMotion to migrate the data to the new datastore.

Comments

VMFS 5 and VMFS 6 can coexist. However, due to the changes done in VMFS 6 metadata structures to make it 4K aligned, you cannot inline/offline upgrade from VMFS5 to VMFS6.

You can leverage the new VMFS 6 capabilities by creating a new VMFS 6 datastore and provisioning new virtual machines to it or migrating the existing virtual machines from VMFS 5 datastore to VMFS 6 datastore.

Furthermore, when upgrading to ESXi 6.5, there is no in-place upgrade path of a VMFS-5 datastore to VMFS-6. Therefore, it is recommended to create a new volume entirely, format it was VMFS-6, and then Storage vMotion all virtual machines from the old VMFS-5 datastore to the new VMFS-6 datastore and then delete and remove the VMFS-5 datastore when complete.